Lessons from my own early losses

Greetings, Chief Storytelling Officers.

There are nearly 3,000 readers of the newsletter now. Many of you have read for months and some even over a year. I appreciate all the support and today I want to challenge you.

This newsletter is designed to help you become a better storyteller, speaker, and fundraiser. It’s easy to read something but it’s much harder to take action. I want to make sure the people reading this newsletter are action takers.

Use what is in the newsletter to get better. Don’t sit on the sidelines.

-Robbie

What holds most people back…

When I first started as a criminal prosecutor I thought I knew best. I figured that since I’d competed on the national mock trial team at SMU Law School that I had some type of raw talent that would carry me to the top of my office in no time. I quickly learned my lesson as my first 5 trials went so-so. I won some and I lost some.

That’s when I started listening to what other people in my office had to say. The attorneys who had been there for years and tried many more cases than me. The problem was that many of the attorneys weren’t very good at their jobs.

So much of their advice was useless or worse.

Luckily for me I found a handful of prosecutors who won and were great. I watched them obsessively. Any time they were in trial, I went.

Quickly I realized some of my own mistakes. It accelerated my growth as a prosecutor and within the first year of my time at the office I had been promoted and put into the domestic violence unit.

This was the place where young prosecutors in the office were put to be tested. Could they deliver and get promoted into felony or would they fall flat and end up a misdemeanor prosecutor forever?

It taught me a great deal as I tried dozens of cases in less than a year. My results were dramatically different from those first 5 cases in my career. No longer was I so-so.

I won and won a lot.

This is how I ended up recruited to join the Dallas District Attorney’s Office and quickly became a felony prosecutor.

By the 3rd year of my career as a trial lawyer I’d been handed my first murder case. The rest is history.

Recently I’ve been noticing a growing parallel between the founders I talk to and my early career as a trial lawyer. Too many are operating like I did in those first 5 cases. They think they know what it takes but they refuse to listen to the deeper insights.

And look, I get it. After all I was that guy in my own career. The only thing that saved me is I hated losing and loved winning so much that I could put that ego aside to learn.

Over the past two weeks I’ve had two founders I coach each raise $15 million in capital.

The reason is simple. They are open minded and growth oriented. They are incredible builders with huge visions of what’s ahead. They also aren’t afraid to lean on others to help them with the other stuff.

They send me recordings of their investor calls. They send me recordings they do on loom as they practice their storytelling. They ask for books to read, podcasts to listen to, and anything I think can help them. They make time to practice and refine their storytelling and speaking skills.

If you’re reading this, you have that potential too.

I’m keeping this one short because with 2 months left until the new year it’s a great time to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself the tough questions. Do the soul searching necessary to figure out if you’re operating at your highest level.

I hear so many founders these days complaining about the market or VCs when the reality is that plenty of founders are raising capital. They just put themselves in a position to make it happen.

Don’t be like I was when I first started my career prosecuting cases. Find a way to push past that and lean into growth.

I want you to succeed.

The world needs more successful founders.

Resources

Great video on Traba who just raised $22m in capital.

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Check out Shai Goldman’s list of funds with year they raised and how much capital.

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I broke down how to raise capital in today’s market in this video over on YT.

Here’s two ways to get help from me for your storytelling and fundraising.

1. Join the waitlist at Potential AI. At Potential AI we’ve built the platform that will craft the story you need to raise capital. Answer a series of questions about yourself and your company and let us do the magic.

2. Apply to work 1 on 1 with me at Competitive Storytelling. This work is typically designed for founders raising more than $8m or exited founders. It’s highly personalized, hands on, and a serious investment to get results like those two $15 million dollar rounds closed over the last 2 weeks.